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Galileo Reading Qohelet: Seeing the World with “Curiosity’s Eye”

In: Biblical Interpretation
Author:
Samuel E. Balentine Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, USA, sbalentine@upsem.edu

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Abstract

This essay examines Galileo’s reading of Ecclesiastes 3:11, which he cited in his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in 1615 at the beginning of his trial for heresy. Why would Galileo have used this text in support of his intellectual inquiry? Three critical components of his intellectual environment are explored: 1) the development of scientific inquiry within the 17th c system of patronage; 2) the culture of curiosity that sustains his intellectual inquiry; and 3) the telescope and the transformation of human imagination.

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